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            <p class="center"><img src="banner_nostalgia.jpg" alt="Nostalgia" class="curved"></p>
            <h2 id="top">Page updated: 25 May 2025</h2>
            <p>Or: media that shaped me growing up.</p>
            <p>I am Canadian, and I grew up in a small-ish city in central Ontario in the 2000s. I've never had many friends and I don't have any siblings, so a lot of my free time was spent by myself at home, usually playing video games or on the family computer.</p>
            <p>This is a list of things I enjoyed the most as a child until 2010-2011ish?</p>
            <p>WIP page!</p>
            <hr>
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            <h1>Websites</h1>
            <h2>Neopets</h2>
            <h2>Other virtual pet sites</h2>
            <hr>
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            <h1>Video games</h1>
            <h2>Pokemon</h2>
            <p>Pokemon was also one of my biggest interests growing up, and I was literally OBSESSED with it as a kid. My first game ever was I think Sapphire? Which was rented from fuckin <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Plus">Rogers Video</a>, but the first game I ever owned was FireRed, and followed by that I got Emerald!</p>
            <img src="img_nostalgia/pkmn_giratina.jpg" alt="Giratina" style="float:right;">
            <p>In the following years I ended up getting noble pink Nintendo DS, and I was super hype for the release of gen 4 with Diamond and Pearl. I'll never forget the days of Serebii.net before they were an official site or whatever they are now -- I used to check the site daily for leaks and rumours, something they'd never post nowadays lol</p>
            <p>As far as DPP goes, I originally rented Diamond, but later got Pearl and Platinum for myself. Platinum is honestly still one of my favourite Pokemon games to date, and I actually replayed a good chunk of it in 2024? Which was really fun!</p>
            <p>Later, HeartGold and SoulSilver also dropped as part of gen 4, and I vividly remember being excited beyond belief when I saw <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFbB0t63MPY">this specific trailer</a> where they had the cool ass 3D models at the beginning. I still have my copy of HeartGold (with Pokewalker!) and it's also still one of my favs -- I think I'm just a sucker for gen 4.</p>
            <p>My interest in Pokemon started to wane with Black and White though -- I had White bc I thought Zekrom was cooler. I ended up not liking the more story-focused approach, and the switch to the animated sprites with the weird camera angles and zooms and stuff -- while cool -- was super jarring to me.</p>
            <p>However, gen 5 did also introduce one fuckin asshole... that green-haired weirdo, N. I was obsessed with him, and he was the first Pokemon character that I had a HUUUUUUUGE crush on.</p>
            <p class="center">
                <img src="img_nostalgia/stamp_n1.png" alt="">
                <img src="img_nostalgia/stamp_n3.png" alt="">
                <img src="img_nostalgia/stamp_n4.gif" alt="">
            </p>
            <p>I don't really have any particular feelings for N these days, but looking at him makes me feel like I'm staring at a weird ex somehow.</p>
            <p>Anyway, here are the games that I ended up owning as a kid -- I ended up getting more than I talked about here bc 1) the games weren't always 200$ a copy, and 2) my obsession was literally unending:</p>
            <ul>
                <li>Red and Blue versions</li>
                <li>Yellow version</li>
                <li>Gold and Silver versions</li>
                <li>Crystal version</li>
                <li>Ruby and Sapphire* versions</li>
                <li>Firered* version</li>
                <li>Emerald* version</li>
                <li>Pearl* version</li>
                <li>Platinum* version</li>
                <li>HeartGold* and SoulSilver* versions</li>
                <li>White* version</li>
                <li>Colosseum</li>
                <li>XD: Gale of Darkness*</li>
                <li>Ranger: Shadows of Almia*</li>
                <li>Ranger: Guardian Signs*</li>
                <li>Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team</li>
                <li>Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness*</li>
                <li>Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky</li>
            </ul>
            <p>* was played to completion</p>
            <p>I did end up later playing Y and a few other games since, but since I was a teenager or older when I did I won't count them here.</p>
            <p>Honestly, as somewhat without an interest in an abundance of merch or their card game, Game Freak did not keep the series interesting for me as I grew older. The games are super dumbed down now, and I honestly feel like they're much more boring in general -- there's too many cutscenes, and the stories they try to do are extremely shallow and/or bland imo.</p>
            <p>I do still have a passive interest in Pokemon games, but I mostly just play the older games now bc they're what interest me and are also the most accessible via emulators. Never mind that new AAA games are 100$ or more after tax here now...</p>
            <h2>Digimon</h2>
            <p>I surprisingly did not have exclusive brand loyalty to Pokemon, and I enjoyed Digimon a lot as well (probably bc it had cool dragons).</p>
            <img src="img_nostalgia/digitalmonsters.jpg" alt="Digital Monster? What's this about?" style="float:right;">
            <p>I wrote more about Digimon <a href="../digimon/index.html">here</a>, but the games I had and played were:</p>
            <ul>
                <li>Digimon World (PS1)</li>
                <li>Digimon World DS</li>
                <li>Digimon World Dusk</li>
            </ul>
            <p>I would like to revisit Digimon World as an adult at some point, bc I was terrible at that game as a child and could not raise anything but a Numemon or Sukamon for the life of me. Despite that though, the sounds and design of that game are burned into my mind, and I played it a lot despite never managing to actually get anywhere LOL</p>
            <p>On the other hand, I did play through Digimon World DS in 2024, and... I do not recommend it. I enjoyed it a lot as a kid, but as an adult it kinda sucks, with bad writing and an odd, very limited selection of Digimon available. On the flip side, Dusk/Dawn are way better improved versions of DS, and I would definitely recommend giving those a try if you have any interest in the DS games at all.</p>
            <h2>Spyro</h2>
            <p>God, I still love the original 3 games for PS1 to date. I literally played those endlessly, and I still could play them endlessly.</p>
            <p>There were a bunch of flops in the series later on, but these are the ones I played:</p>
            <ul>
                <li>Spyro the Dragon (PS1)</li>
                <li>Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage (PS1)</li>
                <li>Spyro: Year of the Dragon (PS1)</li>
                <li>Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly (PS2)</li>
                <li>The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning (Gamecube)</li>
                <li>The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon (Wii)</li>
            </ul>
            <h2>Other Nintendo franchises</h2>
            <h2>Weird rental games</h2>
            <ul>
                <li>Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter (DS)</li>
                <li>Spore Creatures (DS)</li>
            </ul>
            <h2>Other</h2>
            <hr>
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            <h1>Movies and TV shows</h1>
            <h2>Cybersix</h2>
            <h2>Storm Hawks</h2>
            <h2>Bakugan Battle Brawlers</h2>
            <h2>The Lion King</h2>
            <h2>My Neighbour Totoro</h2>
            <h2>Introduction to anime</h2>
            <hr>
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            <h1>Books</h1>
            <p>I never read anymore, but I used to be <i>obsessed</i> with reading as a kid, and in turn that influenced me to want to write as well. I was mostly into books featuring animal protagonists, dragons, and sometime between like, 11-13 I started reading a lot of books with transgender characters once I realised I was probably trans myself (and it wasn't as widespread on the internet at the time).</p>
            <p>I honestly learned most of my writing skills from reading a shit ton of books, and I would kinda "study" the layouts and styles to learn how to write for myself. And I guess it kinda worked out?</p>
            <h2>Warriors (Erin Hunter)</h2>
            <p>If you were into Warriors also, you know.</p>
            <h2>Age of Fire (E. E. Knight)</h2>
            <p>I originally picked up the second book of this series, Dragon Avenger, from some random bookstore while on a day trip once -- I was drawn in my the cover (it features it a big green dragon on it), and the premise that it was not a kids or YA novel about dragon characters, but instead intended as general fiction for <i>adults</i>. So I had to read it!</p>
            <p>(For the record, I was always at a much higher reading level than my peers in school, and in general I enjoyed much more "mature" books even when I was like... 10.)</p>
            <p>The first three books in this series actually all feature their own protagonists, with their stories running parallel and overlapping, so it actually wasn't an issue that I started with the first one.</p>
            <p>To be honest I couldn't tell you much about the books anymore, but the second protagonist's name, Wistala, was my Elder Scroll character name for a long ass time, and in general this very much influenced my dragon-loving self for the longest time. I'd like to give this series a re-read at some point... who knows when.</p>
            <h2>Other</h2>
            <p>Other random series that I don't have much to say about, but were probably influential in some way or another.</p>
            <p>To be quite honest I don't really remember a lot about most of these, but I had them listed on my ancient Goodreads account and they stood out to me as books I remember drawing influence from, even if it was just inspiring me to write my own stories (often fanfic, though I used to write a lot of original stuff as well) and develop charactes.</p>
            <ul>
                <li>Eragon (Christopher Paolini)</li>
                <li>Silverwing (Kenneth Oppel)</li>
                <li>Guardians of Ga'Hoole (Kathryn Lasky)</li>
                <li>The Sight (David Clement-Davies)</li>
                <li>Fire Bringer (David Clement-Davies)</li>
                <li>Exodus (Julie Bertagna)</li>
            </ul>
            <p>And yes, most of these aside from Eragon and Exodus feature animal protagonists LOL. That was pretty much the number 1 to lure me into reading anything.</p>
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